


Recon

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-31
Updated: 2005-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As you might guess from the title, Danny and Rusty are doing some recon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recon

**Author's Note:**

> For Victoria P.'s Snackfood is Love Challenge. My assigned snackfood was Caramello, which made me have the old commercial jingle going through my head ALL DAY: "I was right in the middle of a Caramello / When I found gold...." Gah. No spoilers for the movie -- this is set substantially pre-everything, really, including Tess.

Rusty wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he sort of enjoys recon work. It’s one of the few things on a job he can control. The more you know going in, the more you can handle the unexpected things. Things like Danny deciding to also take a ruby brooch from the hotel safe instead of just the diamond tiara, like they were hired to do. “The girl at the stationery store will like it,” he had said, running his thumb over the facets. The rubies were the dark, most expensive kind, the ones called blood rubies.

Rusty had felt his pulse beating under his skin as he tried to stay calm. “The girl at the stationery store thinks you’re a vice president at the William Morris Agency.”

“Well, it says so on the business cards I had printed there.”

“You can’t give a ten thousand dollar brooch to a girl who’s dumb enough to think that vice presidents of international talent agencies buy their own business cards two thousand miles away from their offices. She’ll think it’s costume jewelry you bought at Express.”

“You’ve been to Express?” Danny had paused, looking at Rusty’s suit. “Structure, I can believe.”

“Shut up. You’re sending it back.” And somehow, his attempt at dictatorship worked: Danny had popped the brooch into a padded envelope the very pretty and incredibly stupid girl at the stationery store helped him find. It was decorated with teddy bears, and Danny bought a box of stationery to match, brown bears with red bows around their necks cavorting down the left side of each sheet.

Rusty wouldn’t admit this, either, but he wished he could have seen Langton’s face when the brooch fell out of the envelope and he read Danny’s note: “Missing something? PS: No, we’re not sending back the tiara. We enjoy wearing it too much ever to part with it.”

Wearing the tiara had been fun, even though the combs on the sides dug into his scalp and hurt like hell. Danny, somehow, looked born to wear a tiara in an ironic manner. They’d each worn it for awhile in the room, drinking Champagne because Danny insisted it was the only thing that went with tiaras. Then they had boxed up their prize and brought to the castle-like residence of their client, Martin Arundel, a wizened trust-fund scion who might have been a school chum of Montgomery Burns. He had been very happy to get his mother’s tiara back from his cheating trophy wife -- she’d been served with divorce papers in the hotel lobby the day after Danny and Rusty had stolen the tiara -- and had given them a bonus of a crisp bill with Benjamin Franklin on it.

Danny had insisted Rusty take it to Structure and go crazy. Rusty said he thought Danny could put it to better use at Express, buying a cheap-ass brooch and telling the stationery girl it was sapphire.

In the end, they put it toward a car, the very car they’re sitting in now, actually, watching one Howard Dalrymple, who has a collection of things in his house Danny very much wants to steal, including an original Barbie doll, from the days when she was brunette and tarty instead of blonde and smiley. He plans to send it anonymously to Mr. Dalrymple’s archenemy, Darlene Digby, because then she will have more mint-condition original Barbie dolls than Mr. Dalrymple does, and Danny is chivalrous. And also because Howard Dalrymple is a pompous asshole.

Rusty is happy they’re getting closer to a time when they won’t have to follow their mark around Barbie conventions, because most biker bars seem genteel by comparison. Also, biker bars involve much less pink.

It’s that need for the extra flourish, the flair, that makes Rusty throw himself into the recon, because he needs to be able to get them out of whatever Danny gets them into. Danny is a “by” guy, as in _by the seat of his pants_ or _by the skin of his teeth_ , but his greatest talent may be making the last-minute, last-ditch improvisation look like it’s what he intended to do all along.

They are waiting for Howard Dalrymple to exit Fig, a painfully trendy restaurant where he has lunch with three friends every Wednesday. Danny took a look at the menu the first day they trailed him there and said to Rusty, “You’ll never be able to eat here -- they don’t have anything deep-fried.”

Rusty’s bored and hungry, so he digs into his stash. Only the stash is down to a single Caramello bar. He shoots a dirty look at Danny. “I didn’t take anything,” Danny says, rolling his eyes. “Don’t you keep that thing locked?”

“I shouldn’t have to,” Rusty says, squinting at Danny. He leans back in his seat and begins unwrapping the Caramello.

“You’re eating that now?”

“I’m hungry, and someone took all of the other food.”

“You ate it last night, while we were waiting for Dalrymple to leave the benefit.”

“I did not.” Although Rusty is starting to think he did. A certain percentage of his eating is somewhat mindless.

“Your fingers are going to be sticky.”

“We’re doing recon, not cracking a safe. Besides, I thought you liked it when my fingers were sticky. I mean, you’re always smiling.” Rusty breaks off a square and pops it into his mouth.

“Those are different circumstances.”

“Yes they are, and no offense, Danny, but the caramel tastes better.”

A pause. “There’s no need for vulgarity.”

“Fuck, yes, there is.” Rusty breaks the next square in half and pulls until there’s a string of caramel an inch long. He does get it on his fingers, and neatly licks it off. Danny starts the car and pulls away from Fig, heading toward the water and their cheap motel.

“It’s twelve-thirty, he’ll be there until two, and we can pick him up once he’s at the store.”

Rusty holds up the Caramello and says, “Two squares left.” He wouldn’t admit this out loud, either, but sometimes the caramel’s in a dead heat.


End file.
